BYU college students in YouTube video don't know when Black History Month is

Kristal Roberts

7:48 AM, Feb 8, 2012

2:59 PM, Feb 9, 2012

Copyright 2011 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

With a month dedicated to the history and contributions of Black people in America, it would seem fair to say most Americans have a general understanding of Black History Month---but the flawed commentary of BYU college students in a YouTube video fly in the face of that generalization.

In a video entitled, "What do you know about Black history?", Dave Ackerman, a white Utah State University graduate painted in "black face", interviews students and many struggled to answer basic questions, like when Black History Month occurs.

"January?" one student answered. "Is it November?" Another answered.

"Black History Month is the month when history started," one female student commented.

A student was finally able to identify February as Black History Month.

But the revealing video offered further insight to the student body's depth of Black history knowledge or lack there of as many struggled to identify black historical figures outside of Martin Luther King Jr. or issues like "getting Black into the schools" as one student phrased it.

One student had a hard time describing the demographic of people he worked with at an Alabama mission, so he went with "colored people".

To celebrate Black History Month, some students said they either ate fried chicken, drank grape juice or listened to the popular rapper, Jay Z.

Efforts to acknowledge Black History date back as far as 1923, when black scholar Dr. Carter G Woodson, introduced Black History Week in an effort to spread awareness. Black History Month was adopted in 1976.

The video can be seen below, for Mobile and iPad users: visit this url:http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v= XGeMy-6hnr0

EDITOR'S NOTE: We previously reported that Dave Ackerman was a student at BYU. We reported this incorrectly and have since corrected this story.

Copyright 2012 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.